I've lived in California all my life and plan to apply to quite a few of the UCs for grad school. I like California. A couple questions about this:

1. Does in-state residency have a significant effect on admissions?2. I know a lot of people do some traveling before starting grad school. What if I have been planning on living/working/exploring in another state from when I apply (fall/winter 2014) to when I start grad school (fall 2015)? I'd like to have some experience living elsewhere, but not if it will hurt my admissions at the majority of schools I'm applying to, or the funding I'll receive. If I will be living elsewhere during even a part of that year, will I still be a California resident? I am over 24 years old, BTW.

I've lived in California all my life and plan to apply to quite a few of the UCs for grad school. I like California. A couple questions about this:

1. Does in-state residency have a significant effect on admissions?2. I know a lot of people do some traveling before starting grad school. What if I have been planning on living/working/exploring in another state from when I apply (fall/winter 2014) to when I start grad school (fall 2015)? I'd like to have some experience living elsewhere, but not if it will hurt my admissions at the majority of schools I'm applying to, or the funding I'll receive. If I will be living elsewhere during even a part of that year, will I still be a California resident? I am over 24 years old, BTW.

Inputs and suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks!

1. I don't think current in-state residency has a significant effect on admission. However, the ability to gain in-state residency does! For example, almost all UC grad programs will require American students (i.e. those eligible for California residency) to gain California residency within 1 year otherwise they have to pay out of pocket for the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. Since they would not force an international student to pay out-of-state tuition out of pocket, this makes it harder for international student to get admitted because they would cost more money to the school.

2. It sounds like you will probably remain a California resident. You have to check the rules on how many days per year you must live in California in order to keep residency (and whether certain activities outside of California can make you lose residency). In general, it is really hard to lose residency (and hard to gain it too). For example, if you had gone to college in New York and return home to California every summer and winter, you would still remain a California resident even though you spent most of your days at college in New York. But to be safe, you should check on the requirements on maintaining California residency.

In short, it sounds like you should be fine though. Even if you are not a California resident for the first year, there should be no significant impact on your admission since having to pay out of state tuition for you for one year is a small amount of the total cost of you as a graduate student over all the years.

Thanks for the reassuring reply! I think I've been unnecessarily stressing out about this.

I guess my main concern is what residency status to put on my applications. What if i apply as a resident, accept an admissions offer with funding that covers a resident, and then end up not qualifying for state residency? Will they adjust the funding package accordingly or will I have to worry about paying the difference?